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For refugees arriving in a country where job opportunities are limited and where unemployment runs at over 30% most have little choice but to start up their own entrepreneurial projects in the informal sector.

Street Express, a wholesale trading store is one such initiative taken up by refugees seeking to stand together and support one another.

Managed by Saeed Abdirizak, 43, a Somali refugee, the store supplies refugee hawkers with goods like chips, sweets, cigarettes and cool drinks.

The store first began operating three years ago when Abdirizak, having done some hawking in the city, teamed up with four fellow Somali refugees to set up shop in a Long Street building.

Street Express has since relocated to the Cape Town Station and some of its original founders have left, but its aim, according to Abdirizak remains the same, to help refugees support a respectable livelihood.

"The profit margins are very low, but at least they have a dignified life."

The idea, he says, of such a venture where refugees assist other refugees is an extension of the "tribal-based system" in place in Somalia where everyone is a member of one or other "big extended family" that pools money together.

"The only way was the street there wasn’t any other choice. We have qualified nurses, qualified people, but they will ask you for Ids and we don’t have Ids."

He says as a refugee living in South Africa a lot depends on the refugee community pulling together and supporting one another because "there are no organizations like Red Cross or UN agency that will help you".

Abdirizak buys his goods from major wholesalers like the Trade Centre and says, "We try to identify what kind of stuff is sellable in the market," but adds that, "Once you’re in the street it teaches you what kind of stuff to sell."

Abdirizak whose brother was killed in 1991 in the war in Somalia, worked as a geologist back home before fleeing on a ship bound for Maputo four years ago.

"You learn to adapt, your world is your capability to adjust to that."